North of Sixty^○ is a new collaborative program of the Learning Technologies Media Lab working with schools in regions north of 60 degrees latitude to tell their Arctic climate stories. Partner schools and communities in the Arctic regions, located in Finland, Norway, Russia, Canada, and the United States, are creating videos and other content online to share on the North of Sixty^○ website.

The project team, led by professors Aaron Doering and Charles Miller, is preparing for an April expedition, traveling over 100 miles on skis, pulling pulks between two remote Inuit communities in Arctic Canada and visiting schools and community centers along the way. Expedition leader Aaron Doering emphasized that while education is the goal, safety is also of utmost importance to the team. which will be practicing training runs with full gear on the ice in Minnesota later this month.

Graduate students Matti Koivula and Jeni Henrickson (in photo) have already left for Alaska to visit schools and gather cultural information about different communities in Kotzebue and Noatak in the Northwest Arctic Borough, and in Kodiak and Karluk on Kodiak Island. They are also sharing their findings online.

"Keyboard College: How Technology is Revolutionizing Higher Education," the latest documentary program produced by American RadioWorks and airing on American Public Radio throughout the country, features the Learning Technology Media Lab's innovative approach to online learning by integrating social media. Stephen Smith, program editor and author, spent a great deal of time with members of the LT team investigating their work for the documentary. American RadioWorks highlights C&I's Angel Pazurek in its accompanying feature, "Social Media in the Classroom."

To access the documentary and spotlights, visit American RadioWorks' Keyboard College story.

Curriculum and Instruction Associate Professor Aaron Doering's TEDxUMN Talk has been added to the TEDxTalks youtube channel. Doering gave his talk on April 21, 2012, in the Coffman Theater. The theme of the event was "At the Heart of Discovery," inspired by the ambition of the University's greatest inventors, scientists, and thinkers that shine and echo from the past.

TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started as a four-day conference in California 25 years ago, TED has grown to support those world-changing ideas with multiple initiatives. The annual TED Conference invites the world's leading thinkers and doers to speak for 18 minutes. Their talks are then made available, free, at TED.com. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group.

To watch Doering talk about Adventure Learning and motivating and engaging K-12 students from around the world, visit the TEDx Channel.

Earthducation Expedition 3, the third in a series of seven-continent explorations investigating the intersection between education and sustainability, begins Feb. 27 in Australia. Led by curriculum and instruction professors Aaron Doering and Charles Miller, the team will discover how education and sustainability intersect on the driest inhabited continent on Earth. In their two-week journey they will collect a diversity of ecological stories from inhabitants across the densely populated regions of Australia as well as the barren Northern Territory and the Great Barrier Reef communities.

Australia is home to plants and animals found nowhere else on the planet as well as the world's largest coral reef system. It is one of the most biologically diverse countries on Earth. Unfortunately, the continent also has one of the highest extinction rates, and is typically cited as being one of the countries most at risk from climate change.

Doering, who has explored the entire circumpolar Arctic over the past 10 years addressing the issue of climate change, said, "The environment is continually changing, and we are documenting how people on every continent are adapting to this change to secure a sustainable future. Our goal is to create a global tapestry of voices throughout the world around this important issue."

Read more here.

Earthducation Expedition 3, the third in a series of seven-continent explorations investigating the intersection between education and sustainability, begins Feb. 27 in Australia. Led by curriculum and instruction professors Aaron Doering and Charles Miller, the team will discover how education and sustainability intersect on the driest inhabited continent on Earth. In their two-week journey they will collect a diversity of ecological stories from inhabitants across the densely populated regions of Australia as well as the barren Northern Territory and the Great Barrier Reef communities.

"We've been invited by these communities to document the ecological and economic impact of climate change," said Doering. "We start by asking: How can education advance sustainability?" Several environmental topics will be explored including Australia's biodiversity, uranium mining, tourism, and the contributions and concerns of people across the continent, including Aboriginal communities.

The goal of Earthducation is to travel to climate hotspots on all seven continents by 2014, collaborating with different cultures to create a first-of-its-kind narrative from around the world. So far, Doering and Miller have traveled to the Arctic Circle, Burkina Faso, Africa, and northern Norway.

"By gathering stories about education and the environment from around the world, we hope to create a foundation for embedding sustainability in learning at all levels and in all cultures," Miller said. "Ultimately, we anticipate that the Earthducation EnviroNetwork will be the world's leading online community focused exclusively on the increasingly vital fusion of education and sustainability."

The Earthducation project is funded by the University's Institute on the Environment. Doering (project investigator), Miller (co-project investigator), and Cassandra Scharber (co-project investigator) from the Learning Technologies program in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction are spearheading the project and are working with a project team from the Learning Technologies Media Lab.

The LT Media Lab (LTML), University Extension Center for Youth Development (CYD), and Youthprise welcomed Dr. Nichole Pinkard for the Inquiry to Impact Symposium on Oct. 28. Pinkard's presentation, "Digital Youth Network: Developing 21st Century Learners Through the Integration of Overlapping Affinity Spaces," addressed two programs that she co-founded in Chicago geared towards fostering digital literacies in teens--the Digital Youth Network and YOUmedia.

Following the presentation, a panel discussion, moderated by Joyce Walker (CYD), was held with panelists representing stakeholders from both formal and non-formal learning spaces interested in youth and media production. The panelists included Pinkard, Cynthia Lewis (Curriculum and Instruction), Cassie Scharber (LTML), Kevin Kalla (Saint Paul Neighborhood Network), and Mercedes Thomas (The Learning Branch). Youth workers, teachers, and researchers from around the Twin Cities joined the symposium, providing the groundwork for increased communication and potential collaborations between schools and youth programs.

See images of the event here.

A special symposium presentation by Nichole Pinkard (associate professor, DePaul University) the morning of October 28, 2011 has been made possible with the collaboration of faculty members Cassie Scharber and Cynthia Lewis in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, the Learning Technologies Media Lab in the College of Education and Human Development, and Dale Blythe and Joyce Walker of the the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Youth Development. Pinkard's presentation, Digital Youth Network: Developing 21st Century Learners through the Integration of Overlapping Affinity Spaces, will inform attendees about the Digital Youth Network model, which provides youth opportunities to develop and apply new media literacy in ways that are personally and academically meaningful to them.

Read the full story. Register for the event.

Charles Miller (assistant professor, Curriculum & Instruction; co-director, LT Media Lab) and Susan Rose (professor, Educational Psychology) of the University of Minnesota, in a collaborative grant with Simon Hooper (associate professor, Instructional Systems) of Penn State University, received funding from the U.S. Department of Education Stepping Stones Phase II program for their grant Research on the Effectiveness of AvenueDHH: Progress Monitoring and RTL with Students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing. The goal of AvenueDHH is to transform the assessment, feedback, and progress-monitoring strategies in reading, writing, and language development for DHH students in first through eighth grade. The grant is for $900,000 over 3 years of support.

Earthducation Expedition 2, the second in a series of seven-continent explorations investigating the intersection between education and sustainability, begins August 23 in the sparsely populated regions of Norway, above the Arctic Circle. Led by curriculum and instruction professors Aaron Doering and Charles Miller, the team will investigate oil exploration, renewable energy, sustainable fishing, toxic pollutants, school logistics, land and water rights, and culture and language in the indigenous Sami communities. Then they will post their findings online in the EnviroNetwork, where teachers, students, and others around the world can view and discuss them.

LT, the learning technologies area of the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, was well represented at the American Educational Research Association (AERA) conference last week in New Orleans. Faculty, staff, and students participated in several presentations during the conference.

Suzan Koseoglu (LT PhD student): Understanding Complex Ecologies: An Investigation of Student Experiences in Adventure Learning Programs

Aaron Doering: Keynote Address for the Computer and Internet Applications in Education SIG Business Meeting

Joel Donna: Using Cloud-Computing Applications to Support Collaborative Scientific Inquiry: Examining Preservice Teachers' Perceived Barriers Toward Integration

Cassie Scharber, Charles Miller, Aaron Doering: Creative Conversations and Potential Collaborations Between Educational Technology Labs and Institutes

Charles Miller, Lucas Lecheler (LTML; LT PhD student): Reading, Writing, and Language E-Assessment for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing K-8 Learners

Charles Miller, Aaron Doering, Cassie Scharber: "Emerging": A Reconceptualization of Contemporary Technology Design and Integration Through a Lens of Adventure Learning